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| In The Land Of The Free |
This isn't some Third World dictatorship we're taking about - this is America, where one in 15 black men over the age of 18 are in prison. It's a shocking situation and one which film director Vadim Jean suspects senior decision-makers may not even be aware of. That's why, when he heard about the case of the Angola 3, he felt he had to do something, and he developed his film In The Land Of The Free...
"In 2002 I was making a TV series called Discovery and I got to know The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick," Vadim explains. "She told me about the case. Like everybody else, I was shocked that this could happen in America today, and I went off and found out more about it, but I didn't think I could do anything."
The case he's talking about is that of Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King, who were sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary known as Angola after being convicted of the murder of prison guard Brent Miller. King, who wasn't even in the prison where the murder happened when it took place, was eventually released after 29 years in solitary, since when he has campaigned non-stop on behalf of his friends. There was never any physical evidence against them and heir convictions hinge on the testimony of a fellow prisoner who was promised his freedom in exchange for his testimony. King is convinced their long detention is politically motivated because they were involved with the Black Panthers and spoke out against ongoing racial segregation in prisons.
Vadim and Robert met at Anita's funeral in 2007. It was a pivotal moment for the filmmaker, whose previous work had been light-hearted fiction. "What he said was really powerful and moving," he recalls. "I missed Anita and I thought about how her big thing was always to say, just do something. I thought, what can I do? Then the next day I was walking across Westminster Bridge with the then chief executive of UKTV, David Abraham - who's now at Channel 4 - and we were talking about it, and I said I wanted to make a film, and he asked what he could do to make it happen. The next morning I got a call from him and we took it from there."
It must have been a big leap from the sort of work he was doing before. He agrees. "My main worry was that I always doubted the prison would give me access. That proved to be true. I did everything I could: I rang them, I wrote to them, my crew in Louisiana tried, but I've now found myself in this strange position where I'm banned from every prison in the state. I knew it would be a challenge to make the film if I couldn't interview Herman and Albert and in the end I had to work out how to tell the story by focusing on Robert. Herman and Albert did manage to make telephone calls to me so we were able to use those. I think in a way the film is made more poignant by the fact that we can hear them but not see them. In fact, the only picture that exists of the Angola 3 together is the one we use in the film."
Vadim obviously did a lot of his research once filming was already underway. I ask him at what point he became convinced of the men's innocence and he tells me that, for him, it was never in doubt.
"The first thing I did was to sit down and read the court transcripts. I think anybody who reads those will be convinced. These men were certainly not guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Looking at the evidence, I came to the conclusion that there had been a rush to judgement, that in the heat of the moment evidence had been misinterpreted."
This is part of a bigger story, of course - the story of how American justice came to function this way. The US currently has the biggest prison population of any country in the world, more than 25 per cent higher than China's. Vadim tells me that the case of the Angola 3 has been significant in prompting the use of solitary confinement as a long-term strategy rather than just a short-term punishment technique. Around 25,000 US prisoners are now held in this way. Many don't survive it psychologically, and this is part of the source of Vadim's fascination with the Angola 3.
"I see this film as a story of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of terrible injustice," he says. "I find it remarkable how they've remained strong, even keeping their sense of humour."
The question everybody must be asking is how this can go in in America today, even after Barack Obama's rise to power.
"I don't believe Obama knows about it," Vadim says plainly. "We would love for him to see the film. We're working on ways of getting people in the administration to see it. We're hoping to have a screening in Washington organised by John Conyers, the Chair of the House Judiciary."
Next up for Vadim is a return to fiction, with a biography of Robbie Burns starring Gerard Butler, but it's plain that the Angola 3 campaign is something he's going to keep working on. If you want to help, he says, it's easy to do so. Letters to Herman and Albert can be sent via his website at www.inthelandofthefreefilm.co.uk. They can help to lift the spirits of the incarcerated men and they can do what In The Land Of The Free hopes to do - make sure that they are not forgotten.
In The Land Of The Free is currently on release across the UK.
